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Brief Synopsis

After 30 years of teaching at a Rio de Janeiro convent school located across from a diamond company, Prof. James Anders retires and flies to New York. He contacts an old friend, Mark Milford, now a wealthy criminal, and presents him with an elaborate plan to rob the diamond company. Milford recruits four men for the heist: Erich Weiss, a former Nazi sergeant who will supervise the operation; Gregg, one of the world's fastest safecrackers; Agostino Rossi, an electronics expert; and Jean-Paul Audry, a French gigolo who must seduce the diamond company's secretary, Mary Ann, to obtain her vault key. The men assemble in Rio and solve an unanticipated problem--a new alarm system called "Grand Slam 70." On the night of the robbery, Jean-Paul removes the key from Mary Ann's purse and passes it to his accomplices; then Gregg and Agostino, through numerous ingenious devices, break into the diamond vault. After the robbery, Jean-Paul fails to replace the key, however, and Mary Ann goes to the police. On their way to the airport the robbers are chased by the police, and Gregg is killed. Before disposing of the getaway car, Erich strangles Jean-Paul, whom he has long hated; fearing that he is next, Agostino flees but is killed by police at a fishing port. When Erich, the sole survivor, arrives at the rendezvous spot with the case of jewels, he is shot down by the waiting Milford; upon opening the case, however, Milford finds it empty. In Rome Mary Ann and Professor Anders are seated at a sidewalk cafe, congratulating themselves on their clever series of double-crosses, when they are momentarily distracted by a plane dropping leaflets. In that split second a thief rides past on a motorcycle and snatches Mary Ann's purse, unaware that he has stolen $10 million in diamonds.